Cover Story
by mayrwyn
Summary: This fic takes place in an imaginary Alexandria that veers off from the show shortly after the gang arrives in the community and Carol goes undercover. They are integrating. It is going better for some than for others. When Aaron returns with an injured and delirious Daryl, how can Carol reconcile her reaction with the fiction that she's trying to maintain?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He found Dixon a mile west of where they were supposed to meet, sitting on the bank of a creek, staring intently at something Aaron couldn't see from his angle of approach. The man was soaking wet and ash white, with a makeshift bandage on his shoulder that was bright red with new blood. Daryl didn't seem to notice him at all, which was sufficiently unusual that if Aaron found reason to tell the tale in the future, he might use words like _remarkable_ or _shocking_. Perhaps even _astonishing_.

"Promise," he was saying. "Ain't nobody mad. You was scared is all. Come on out now, and I'll take ya back to your mama."

Aaron slowed his approach, not wanting to startle the child that he couldn't yet see.

He paused a short distance away, confident at this point that Daryl must surely be hiding the fact that he'd noticed Aaron's arrival and was focused on whatever child he'd found while they were separated.

"She's real worried, Soph. Gonna be so happy to see ya when we get back."

Aaron had never heard Daryl Dixon sound even remotely as he did now.

They'd been working together for three months now, and were returning from their fifth recruiting run. They weren't best friends or anything, but Aaron thought he was beginning to get to know the other man a bit. Three months was a long time in Post Turn time, and he'd never heard Daryl sound like this before.

Honestly, it was a relief. There were those at home who were quite vocal about their fear of Daryl Dixon, and Deanna was beginning to listen to them a bit more than Aaron liked. For now, the plan was to keep him outside of the gates and being useful as much of the time as possible. Deanna was even considering sending him on a longer, more far reaching run to both scavenge and search for recruits. Aaron wasn't looking forward to bringing that idea up to Eric.

He hadn't crossed paths with anyone in his search, but the girl's mother had to be nearby for Daryl to have met up with them.

"Found that house you hid in. You did good. Real good. Hid in that little closet, yeah? I found that. Come on, now, don't make her wait no more than she's gotta. We want to see her smile when she sees ya."

Aaron was very slowly and carefully moving around where he could see the child when Daryl slumped backwards, head and shoulders submerging in the creek. He jumped forward, rushing to lift Daryl's head out of the water and check his breathing before he turned to reassure the child.

The child that wasn't there.

His eyes darted around the area searching for any sign of where she may have gone before the heat coming off his partner registered. Daryl was burning up with fever. He'd likely come to the water to try to cool himself down, Aaron thought, and then started hallucinating.

Aaron drug him the rest of the way out of the water, then pulled back the bandage to check his wound. The gunshot wound oozed blood, and angry red streaks surrounded it like a spiderweb. He slid one hand back from the shoulder, slowly and carefully, feeling for the exit wound. There wasn't one, but the body under his hands stiffened. A moment later, Daryl's eyes opened. His expression was completely blank for a long moment before he blinked and visibly noticed Aaron. Breath exploded outward in a half pained, half relieved sound.

"I found her. Gotta get her back."

"We will," Aaron said. He didn't know if you were supposed to reinforce hallucinations, but he didn't want to try explaining that there was no _her_ to get anywhere. He didn't know what Daryl's reaction to that might be. He did know the man seemed intent on getting the non-existent girl home, and anything he could use to help get Daryl moving he could ask forgiveness for later. "Can you walk?"

Daryl rolled his eyes, then seemed surprised by how hard it was to stand up. "Be fine. Just stuck myself. Where's 'phia's doll? Can't leave…" he looked confused for a moment, then said, "that was yesterday? I already took it back?"

"That's right." _Just agree with the delirious man_, Aaron thought, _and he'll be more likely to cooperate_.

"I told her. Knew I was gettin' close."

Daryl was on his feet now, one arm slung around Aaron's shoulder, completely oblivious to the fact that wherever he thought he was right now, the man he was with hadn't been there. Or maybe he saw Aaron as someone else altogether.

"I'm sure you did. Come on, one foot in front of the other."

But Daryl was looking around, his breaths coming in quick, sharp gasps.

"No! She was here. Where'd she – "

"She's right here. I'm watching her. You have a fever. We need to get you back."

Daryl blinked, then grabbed Aaron's chin, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise later, and turned his head until he could stare blearily into his eyes before saying, "You gotta, you leave me. You get that girl back to her mama, you hear me? Swear it."

Before Aaron could tell another lie, Daryl passed out.

It was a mostly controlled fall that ended with the them both on the ground, Daryl's head and shoulders resting across Aaron's thighs. They were a mile from where they'd left the car. The car was ten miles from Alexandria.

For a moment, he thought about it. He could just walk away. Tell the people back home that they'd split up and Daryl never made the rendezvous point. He could lead a search team out this way, maybe find him alive, maybe just find his body. They could find him Walking, put him down, grieve, and move on. It would solve so many problems. People would shake their heads, talk about how tragic it was, but almost everyone would be secretly glad that the scary, feral man wasn't _right there in front of them_.

Daryl Dixon obviously cooperated with and defended the group he arrived with but getting the man to integrate was proving impossible. Inside the walls, if he wasn't glaring threateningly at someone who walked by him, he was skinning animals in the front yard or sharpening the monstrous knife that no fewer than eight people had asked Deana to confiscate. Aaron couldn't even get him to talk about where he was from, and they'd spent more time outside the walls together than in Alexandria since Daryl arrived in the community. _It may be best for everyone if he didn't return._

Aaron sat, stunned and more than a little disgusted at the turn his thoughts had taken. That he'd contemplated it at all made him feel like he was going to throw up. That wasn't the man he was, and it wasn't a man he ever wanted to be. The world may have changed, but Aaron wasn't willing to change with it. Not that much.

In his interview, Daryl said the kids deserved a roof.

There was something there. There was some_one_ there worth knowing. Aaron had been wrong about people before, but not this time. No, if Daryl died before they got back to Alexandria, it wouldn't be from any action or inaction on Aaron's part.

"Come on. Let's get you home," Aaron said aloud, as if Daryl could hear him. The dead weight of man in his lap didn't respond. Aaron sighed. "I don't have the first clue how I'm gonna do that if you don't wake up, you know."

Aaron had two or three inches on the other man, but it was a struggle to get him into a fireman's carry. It was an awkward and difficult task he had in front of him.

"One foot in front of the other, right?" Aaron said. Then, "I'm talking to an unconscious person."

He had managed more difficult tasks. The obstacles were different in his life before the end of the world, but in some ways, nothing had really changed. Aaron had been in parts of the world where it was a longer hike to get help, and where the help was a lot less helpful when you got to it, and he'd always come out of those situations fine. Eventually. This was not a big deal.

Almost immediately, as if to taunt his optimism, he could hear the shuffling steps of a Walker closing on them from the left.

It didn't take them long at all to draw the interest of the dead. "See what you've gone and done with all your chatter?"

Daryl didn't answer him.

He sped up as much as he could, but it wasn't very long before one emaciated shambling corpse became two, and then two became three, and then Aaron was forced to lean Daryl up against the nearest tree.

"If you wanted to get up and help, now would be a great time to do that."

Daryl mumbled something that sounded remarkably like 'Fuck off', but Aaron couldn't be sure.

Risky or not, he had to use the gun for two of them. He was good with a knife, but he didn't pretend that he could kill three up close without either him or Daryl getting too up close and personal with the things. Even using the gun, it was a near thing in the end. He was winded and sore from carrying Daryl as far as he had. The car wasn't far now, and he decided to multi-task and catch his breath while he considered his options.

The fireman's carry was still likely the best way to go about it. It was a lot harder to pick Dixon up than it had been to put him down.

"I don't suppose you want to wake up now?"

Daryl said something that may or may not have been, "Needs better shoes."

Aaron snickered. "You never struck me as a shoe kind of guy, Dixon." The thought tickled at his mind, though. This may be his best chance to get to know a few things. "Who needs better shoes?"

He was answered by a gagging sound and wet splatter on the back of his calves.

Well, shit.

He got Daryl back on the ground, this time in something resembling the fetal position, and tried to clear out his mouth before he really choked.

The force with which Daryl's closed fist impacted with the side of his head should have been beyond the other man, and it left Aaron dazed for several heartbeats. When his vision cleared, Daryl was pushing himself backwards on the ground, too weak to stand but still trying to run, his eyes wide.

"Hey! Hey, don't do that. You're sick. You're okay. We have to get back to the car. Daryl?"

Daryl stopped, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. "The fuck?"

"You with me?"

"Aaron?"

"Thank God. You've been pretty out of it," he made sure he sounded casual as he crossed to Dixon and held out a hand, "Let me help you up."

Daryl coughed, then spit, then rolled to his hands and knees before slowly gaining his feet. He did all of it without looking at Aaron or accepting his hand, and Aaron took that as a sign that he was at least mostly lucid.

"Feel like shit," Daryl said, swaying.

"You're in your right mind, and that's better than a minute ago." He meant the words the words to be a comfort, but he could tell from the look on Daryl's face that it was the opposite. "Don't worry, you didn't say anything embarrassing. You just talked about shoes. Look, I don't know if it was the vomiting or if your fever broke, but the closer we can get to the car before you fall flat on your face again the better. I'm tired of carrying you."

Daryl didn't make a sound the whole way. Every so often, Aaron would cast a look at him only to see the other man staring straight ahead and biting his bottom lip. He didn't slow down again until they were ten feet from the car, when his forward momentum changed direction and he was halfway to the ground before Aaron even noticed he was falling.

Working in the pantry was exhausting in a way to which Carol was no longer accustomed.

She arrived early, primped and freshly pressed, armed with a vapid smile and uncomfortable shoes. Of all the requirements of the role she assigned herself - with possibly too little forethought – upon their arrival in the upper-middle-class suburb of Alexandria, she regrets the shoes the most. She remembers spending the early days of the new world in unsuitable shoes, and it isn't an experience she wants to repeat. Clothes are, for the most part, just clothes. The smile and the idle chit chat about things that never really mattered were much more exhausting than looking, as Daryl had so succinctly put it, _ridiculous_. The whole community was ridiculous. It was surreal. Manicured lawns without even the first attempt at a back-yard garden, kitchens with dishwashers and laundry rooms that wasted water.

Alexandria hovered somewhere between illusion and delusion, and it made Carol want to scream at them.

_They were all going to die._

Better them than her people. Still, as the days wore on, it became harder not to learn individual names. Not to pick up on trivial things about Olivia and Denise and Kim and Patsy and Aaron and Eric and, Lord help her, Enid. Enid, who wasn't remotely like Sophia used to be but might be something like Sophia would have been. Enid had been outside the walls, Carl was already getting attached, and sometimes it was just a little bit _too much_ for Carol. She needed a place where she could let go of everything, except this wasn't a world where anyone got to do that, so she may as well sort the lima beans and hope for the best.

Honestly, it wasn't just Enid. Or Sam, and she wasn't even poking around the edges of that situation this afternoon. _Everything_ was just a little too much for Carol these days. She wanted, more than anything, a chance to just tuck herself away from everyone and _breathe_.

A little time alone was the goal when Carol smiled at Olivia and tossed some excuse over her shoulder as she slipped out the door of the pantry and into the late afternoon light. A short walk in the fresh air would help her get out of her own head. She decided on a leisurely lap around the inner perimeter – the block, around the block – keeping her smile firmly in place and lifting a hand in greeting every now and then.

"Good afternoon." Deanna fell into step beside her at the halfway point, and Carol stifled the urge to scream. The solitude had been nice while it lasted. "Olivia was saying that you've settled in nicely."

"It isn't much different than organizing a household, just a bit grander in scale," Carol said. She shrugged. "I do hope that they have a bit better luck with getting some of the rarer items on the list this trip, though. A little bit of chocolate can go a long way for morale."

Deanna was nodding along. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I was thinking that Mr. Dixon and Aaron may have greater success if they ranged a bit further afield. It would mean being gone longer, though. It's possible that Eric would insist on accompanying Aaron if he were to be gone for more than a couple of days, and – I'm not sure how to ask this delicately…"

"If Daryl was uncomfortable with anything about Aaron, he wouldn't have spent the last three months mostly outside the walls with him." Carol stated. Deanna was perceptive in an irritatingly scattershot fashion. She seemed perpetually on the verge of ferreting out Carol's secrets somehow, and yet remained remarkably naïve about issues inside of her own community. Carol didn't dislike the other woman so much as she was frustrated by her. Perhaps her greatest sin, Deanna Monroe was completely clueless about the content of Daryl's character.

It wouldn't do for Carol to show a strong reaction to what felt like a further than usual maligning of Daryl. She had heard enough whispered comments to know that they had a problem in that regard, but she had so far been unable to defuse the situation. A rousing tale of being saved by Daryl Dixon only resulted in patronizing looks and remarks that of course _someone like him_ had been useful outside the walls.

She was still considering what direction to take the current conversation when the sounds of a scuffle caught their attention.

She knew it was him before they turned the corner. Somewhere in her subconscious something in the quality of the sound registered and there was a wave of relief like an exhale, muscles loosening even as her chest tightened.

Aaron and Daryl were back. That was a good thing. But that knowledge was quickly chased by the knowledge that something was very wrong. Something more than a fit of temper.

Three feet away from the car they left in, the two men were struggling on the ground, oblivious to the crowd that was gathering around them.

She wasn't going to be able to fix this.

Just as Daryl threw Aaron away from him Deanna said, "We can't have this," under her breath. She took off at a purposeful clip toward the altercation.

Carol followed, pushing the why's out of her mind in favor of focusing on calming things down first when someone – she was pretty sure it was Eric – shouted, "He's got a knife!"

The damn shoes slowed her down, so she kicked them off about the time she passed Deanna.

"It's the fever," Aaron was saying as she grew closer. His hands were raised, his palms facing out in front of him. He was trying to catch Daryl's eye.

Fever. Oh.

This, at least, was familiar. She'd seen him injured too many times to count, and more than once she'd met the man he became when his mind was clouded with pain or illness. It would be embarrassing, later, but better to be embarrassed than exiled.

She should know, having been both at one time or another. That thought was stifled as quickly as it surfaced. She ignored it with the ease of practice while she took stock of the current situation.

Daryl had his back to the car, Aaron in front of him, and Abraham was coming up on his left too fast. Carol and Deana were approaching from the right, or more importantly, the knife side.

There were too many Alexandrians, and no one that she could count on in a situation like this. She had no doubt they were coming, the commotion was loud enough to have drawn the attention of everyone remotely nearby, but it would take too long. Abraham was too new. He wouldn't have even the first clue what to do, and if he grabbed at Daryl right now someone was going to get hurt.

It would kill Daryl if he hurt someone while he was out of his head.

Aaron said, "You found her, remember? We're back. We're just going to take her to the doctor to check her out, okay?"

Daryl hesitated. It wasn't long, but it was enough for Aaron to see.

Carol was five steps away from them when Aaron continued, although she could have heard him a block away, damn him.

"We're getting Sophia back, me and you. You found her."

It felt like a mule kicked her in the chest, and she stumbled. Whatever she had been about to say was forgotten, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, but she must have made a sound. She had to, because Daryl's head whipped around like he was looking for the source of a sound and she was able to make out the desperation on his features.

"Sophia!" He shouted it, loud.

There were too many people here for this to be happening. It wasn't any of their business.

People were talking about knives and fevers, but she knew all of that. There were hands grabbing at her that she had to push away, and someone stepped between them that she had to shove out of the way, but she finally, _finally_ made it to Daryl. She reached up and cupped his cheek with her hand.

She was going to have to yell.

"Daryl!" She put just enough pressure on his face to convince him to turn his head so she could look into his eyes. They were glassy looking and so full of hope that she nearly didn't know them for his. It broke her heart to see it now. "You're hurt. You have a fever. You're a little confused."

"Found her. She was next to this creek. You seen her yet?"

"We did find her, Pookie. She was in the barn." She tried to soften her tone but forcing the words out through a throat that was closing up on her made them sound strangled and odd.

"Gone?"

Carol nodded. "Yes. Sophia's gone."

The sound he made as his knees buckled would echo in her head for all of her days.

It sounded the way she felt when she was alone and her mind chased phantoms down rabbit holes. It probably sounded a little the way she did forever ago, when only Daryl's arms around her kept her in this world at all.

She threaded the fingers of one hand through Daryl's hair. His arms were tight around her knees. Daryl had dropped the knife and she started to kick it away before she realized she was barefoot. She continued to try to sooth him with one hand and gestured toward the knife with the other. Glenn swooped in and grabbed it.

Thank God someone got here who would know how to help.

"It's his shoulder. And he's burning up. I'll need antibiotics and get these people out of here," she said, marveling at how business-like her voice sounded when she was shaking apart on the inside. Glenn looked everywhere except at her – or probably Daryl - as he nodded.

This was a disaster. Daryl was going to be mortified when he was himself again. Probably a third of the town was here now, staring at them and hearing him sob 'Sorry's' into her thighs.

Aaron was looking at her like he'd never seen her before in his life. So was Deanna, and right now the woman was the greater concern.

"He was seeing a little girl. I used that to get him home. I'm sorry." Aaron ran a hand down his face, half relieved and half apologetic. He was still breathless, and he didn't look much better than Daryl.

She didn't know if he was talking to her, to Daryl, or to Deanna. Carol nodded anyway.

"It's best you just leave us," she said.

"I sent for Doctor Anderson. If Aaron and Abraham can help get him to the infirmary, the doctor should be arriving soon. Is the bullet still inside of him?" Deanna's voice was soft with false understanding. Politician empathy. Bullshit.

"Yeah," Aaron said, "I didn't have any way of getting it out, so I just brought him straight here."

Daryl's weight was leaning against her so hard that she knew he had lost consciousness. At least he'd finally stopped talking. First, they would get him to the infirmary. Then Carol could figure who heard what and come up with a story that would explain everything away.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Carol."

Rick's voice was low and urgent, and his hand was putting just enough pressure on her upper arm to be impossible to ignore without being enough to hurt.

"Whatever it is can wait, Richard. I am busy." She didn't even care that she sounded less like the bubbly housewife she was supposed to be and more like someone dangerous.

"You need to get hold of yourself. People are watching."

"I need to control myself? I do?" Carol looked up, glaring. He was panting after a married like a dog in heat, but Carol was supposed to control herself.

The crowd was still there. At some point, she'd made it to the ground with Daryl's head in her lap. His vest was folded next to her and she was trying to determine whether she was going to have to cut the shirt away from the wound. It was stuck to him with dried blood, but she could still see there was angry, red swelling surrounding it.

His skin was dry, and the heat was terrifying. The fever had gotten so high so fast, the injury wasn't that old at all. It was almost like there was something else going on.

"Oh, God," she ripped the shirt open, ran her hands over the skin that was exposed, searching. "He's burning up. There might be a bite. Aaron!"

Rick sucked a breath between his teeth. "Calm down."

"Shut up!" She all but growled at Rick, "Aaron! Did you check for a bite?"

Aaron was there almost immediately, so he couldn't have gone far. "I tried, but he hit me in the head. I didn't even get a good look at the gunshot wound."

Of course not. Daryl wouldn't have let anyone near him in the condition he'd been in, not if he could help it. "Okay, I'm going to get up. We'll roll him and check his back and then"

"Carol," Glenn's voice broke through. It was softer than Rick's, suggesting where the other liked to bark orders. "Hey, you know what? I bet Daryl would appreciate it if we took him inside before we checked the rest of him, okay?"

Of course, he would. What was she thinking? Carol sighed, "Move him while he's out. If he wakes up, he'll…"

"Fight like a rabid wolf. Yeah. Been there, done that. You meet up with us at the Doc's, okay? I've got this."

"Okay. Right. That's a good idea."

"Um, if we're going to do that, you're going to need to let go, okay?"

Well, shit. "Yes. I'll get his things. Don't let – "

"Nobody touches him 'til you're there. I know the drill."

"Okay."

She wasn't going to make it without Daryl. She'd known that for a while, hadn't she? Those days when she was alone, putting one foot in front of the other, before she had Tyreese and the girls to focus on. She knew then that she could only take it for a while, and then only if she imagined him healthy and happy and whole surrounded by people who appreciated him. In their home.

Now she felt like she was walking through molasses. Every movement hurt in a way that made her feel old and tired and absolutely paralyzed with fear.

She had to get to the infirmary.

She couldn't make herself walk toward it. Getting to the infirmary meant seeing the bite that had to be the reason for the fever. She couldn't see that.

"Hey," Maggie said softly. The young woman was standing there, looking more than a little worried. She had collected Daryl's crossbow from the car, and at some point, Glenn had given her the knife.

Carol slung one over her shoulder and took the other. The sheath was on Daryl's belt, but that's okay. She would feel better with the knife in hand, and she had the excuse, didn't she?

"You okay?" Maggie was still looking at her as if she expected something.

"I'm fine. I kicked off my shoes somewhere."

"I'll find them."

"Don't bother. If you could go to the house and get my boots?"

Maggie blinked, "You sure?"

"It's just boots. Besides, someone shot him. I'd rather have those if they're on their way here."

Maggie nodded, then stood and started dispersing people in different directions. Somewhere along the way the young woman's willful stubbornness had become confidence. It looked good on her.

"I'm going to just let her do that," Deanna said. "I spoke with Aaron. They were separated when it happened, so we don't know if someone else shot him or if it's an accidental self-inflicted wound."

"Someone shot him," Carol said as she stood. Carl ran up with her boots, but it was too awkward to bother with them until she got to somewhere she could divest herself of something. It didn't feel like enough time had passed for him to be there. She needed to focus.

Deanna was frowning. "Well, I'm sure Pete can tell us for certain."

"I'll meet you there," Carol said, nodding at Carl. "Carry those for me?"

"Yeah. Um – I'm sorry."

Carol blinked. Oh God, he'd been there already. They found the bite.

She was halfway to the ground when someone took her arm. She didn't even look to see who it was.

"They found – "

"No! I've not been there. I don't know. I'm sorry he got shot, though."

"Did you shoot him?" It was something that Daryl would say, and it straightened Carl's shoulders. Good.

"No."

"Whoever did might be headed this way. You be ready."

"Right. And I mean, about the other thing? What Aaron did? I'm really sorry about that. That was not okay."

Carol blew out a breath. "I don't think Daryl will remember. His fever is too high."

Carl nodded, but as he took off at a jog toward where everyone was gathering, he said, "Yeah, but you will. Just because it wasn't intentional doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

Carol took a deep breath. She had no idea what she was going to say, but she had maybe three minutes before she had to face whatever was happening to Daryl, and she needed to think about anything other than what might be waiting beyond that doorway. She may as well start with damage control. "The answer to your earlier question is no, Daryl Dixon is not a homophobe and he will not be bothered by Eric going with them on a longer run. He may not want to be gone for longer himself, though."

"Well, I suspect that you're the one who would know. Still, that was a very dangerous thing you did, Carol, you really should have let Aaron and the others handle it."

"Aaron should have told him he was hallucinating," Carol said, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "Daryl isn't dangerous."

"Do you know what he was seeing?"

"That's no one's business." She wondered what Daryl would think of her letting the misunderstanding blooming in the eyes of the politician flourish? It would be so much simpler. She almost regretted not thinking of it herself when they first arrived.

Thank God, they were there.

Glenn was standing between Daryl and the doctor, his hands on his hips, glaring. "Carol will be here in a minute!"

"Carol is here," she said. "Did you check?"

Glenn spun around, then threw his hands up in the air, "Not yet. Daryl won't let me, and this guy didn't want to wait."

She laid a hand on Glenn's shoulder as she passed him. For a moment, she could feel Deanna's eyes on all of them but couldn't bring herself to care. Everyone and everything that wasn't Daryl seemed to waver in and out of existence, anyway.

He had slipped past pale and looked almost gray. His pupils were different sizes, his skin was hot and dry, and he kept staring at the space beside her as if he saw something she couldn't see. She was too much of a coward to ask him what he was looking at, and instead let herself be comforted by the fact that he was conscious again.

"M'srry" Daryl was still apologizing. Whether for not finding Sophia or for any of a million other things he held himself responsible for, it was impossible to tell. He probably didn't even know.

"It's okay. Everything is going to be fine. I need you to be still for me, okay?"

"Hurts."

"I know. That's why you're going to be very still. Can you tell me if you're hurt anywhere else?"

He couldn't. She wasn't even sure he knew who she was right now. That wouldn't bother her, except it meant he wouldn't know who the doctor was, either. Daryl didn't react well to strangers touching him when he was lucid.

When he wasn't it was worse.

"Listen to me, okay?" she turned his head until his eyes were pointing in her general direction. "I'm going to be right here, and no one is going to hurt you. You've been seeing some things that aren't real, but that's just the fever. Do you know who I am?"

"Badass 's wha' y'are."

"Daryl? Do you know my name?"

"My Caro. Everthn's fuzzy."

"I know. It'll get better. I'm right here, so you trust me. Glenn is here with us to help. I'm here, Glenn is here, and the doctor is here. We'll make sure nobody else gets close to you, okay?"

While she was talking, the doctor had started an IV. She looked up just in time to see him about to give Daryl something she was absolutely certain the other man didn't want. Instead of stopping him, she shot Glenn a questioning look.

"Sedative," Glenn said. "And antibiotics."

Carol nodded.

"Won't lea' me? I'm s'rry. Don' leave." Daryl slurred.

"I'll be right here." She propped his crossbow up against the table, handed the knife to Glenn, and leaned back over Daryl. "Now, I'm going to make sure you don't have any scratches."

"Ain't bit."

"Good. I'm just going to check for myself. Don't get too excited, we've got an audience."

He wasn't awake to tease her back.

"What do you think?" Deanna asked Aaron, just shy of a whisper.

Deanna was leaning against the railing of the house that served as the town's doctor's office. A few feet away, the members of Rick's group had slowly gathered. Aaron was very quietly waiting for them to forget that he was there and to talk to each other, but so far, the only thing that had happened was that Carl Grimes had glared at him with enough venom to kill a lesser man. Eric was unobtrusively hovering near Aaron, still shaking with adrenaline.

Aaron crossed his arms and gave half a shrug. "I don't think it's self-inflicted."

"You say he was seeing a child?"

Aaron nodded. "A little girl named Sophia. Kept making me promise to leave him and take her back. Then he'd be out for a while, mumble a bit, but it always came back to seeing the girl."

"Who's Sophia?" Abraham asked, too loudly. Whether he'd heard Aaron or had just chosen that moment to ask a question that had been simmering under the surface for a while, Eric couldn't tell. Still, the three Alexandrians moved a bit further away to give the group the appearance of privacy. None of them picked their conversation back up.

"Shut up!" Carl stood, glaring. "You weren't there. You don't get to talk about her."

"Carl," Rick said softly. "No one meant any disrespect."

Carl turned on his father, glaring, "It doesn't matter what they mean. You want Daryl to hear? Or _Carol_?"

"They're a little busy right now, I think we're safe."

"He thought he found her though, and that he brought her back. Everybody was just standing around staring at them and Carol had to tell him Sophia was dead _herself_. I should've done that for her. Or you should have. We shouldn't have just stared like it was a tv show or something. If it was me, and I thought Mom was alive? Daryl would've stepped up. He wouldn't have made you tell me what happened."

"Carl, sometimes when you're surprised by something, that's what you do. You can't blame yourself for not being prepared for something like that to happen. None of us were."

"Nobody else _knew_. They didn't even take his knife. I knew if Daryl got hurt bad to take his weapons away when I was just a little kid," Carl muttered, but it was much more subdued than his earlier rants.

"Well, don't go tryin' that. If Daryl loses it, you do the smart thing."

"Run?" Rosita interjected. The joke sounded forced, but at least someone was trying. The shock had worn off, and they were settling in for a long wait, now.

"Hell, no." Abraham said. "Yell for Carol."

The joke, and the laughter that followed it, was the forced kind that relied on some shared history and wasn't even really funny to the people laughing. It was the kind of exchange that happened in ICU waiting rooms and ER's before everything fell apart, meant to make things that can't be made better at least more bearable for a moment. Eric cast a glance toward Aaron, but his boyfriend was still giving Deanna all his attention.

She was saying, "You should go home. Get cleaned up, have something to eat, and sleep. I'm going to stay here until we hear something, and then speak with Rick about what precautions we should take. Hopefully Mister Dixon will be able to tell us how concerned we should be about the person who shot him."

"Yeah. Okay. You'll send someone if – "

"We know where you are if we need you."

The others seemed more relieved to see them go than anything else, but Eric didn't hold it against them. They were family, and he and Aaron weren't. Not yet, anyway. They'd closed ranks around their wounded member and if anything surprised Eric about that it was that Aaron seemed to be almost accepted. More than himself, anyway, and certainly more than Deanna. It was…interesting.

"Well, what do you know about that?" Eric whispered, once they were far enough from the house that none of the people loitering around the porch could hear them. He probably could have spoken at full volume, but there was nothing wrong with being careful. Eric didn't want to be overheard, and Aaron was blaming himself for lying to Daryl Dixon.

"I didn't even consider the possibility that it was a real child. I knew he gave the children as a reason to be here, but I just thought it was a generalized soft spot. Like the cliché, you know? Taciturn macho man with a soft spot for children and one-eyed dogs," he said.

"You should talk to Deanna again later. After you've had a shower and a nap."

"She was there," Aaron answered, not dismissively, really, but more like he'd forgotten that Eric already knew Deanna had been there.

"Yes, but did she _see_? You're the one who was out there with him. So, you tell me. What you saw out there, and then what you saw in here. Whose child was it, his or hers?"

"That's a little – "

"Think. I know you're tired, but I'm not being a gossip. Think about it."

Aaron stopped walking and turned to face him. "You think she's theirs."

"Mmmm…. I do. Deanna has been saying that she wants to understand him. That she wants to be able to explain him to the people who think he's going to go crazy and kill us all. Well, there he is in a nutshell. They lost a daughter. That's been known to destroy relationships even without the stress of being outside among the dead. It happened long enough ago that some of their own group didn't even know. Glenn did. Rick. Carl."

"The ones who have been together since the beginning."

"They've lost a lot of people since then, but it's the little girl he was saving. It was Carol he wanted to bring her back to. And Carol's the one he was begging for forgiveness in the middle of main street. Sophia was their daughter."

"Evidence?"

"He was begging her for forgiveness in the middle of Main Street?" Eric said, archly. "Also, what do you think would have happened if _you_ called him Pookie?"

"I thought I misheard that."

"Pookie. She said it. _And he was used to it_."

"She called herself the group den mother," Aaron said. Because really, he couldn't think of two people that would make a stranger fit than the prim little woman who worked in the pantry and the man who skinned animals in the front yard.

"It's absolutely tragic. I wonder what he was like before?"

"Gentle." He knew it was true even as he said it. "The way he was talking to the girl. I mean, sure, it was a delusion, but it was just so…he was gentle with her. Sweet, almost."

"I wonder what telling that story would do for a gaggle of bored housewives who want Deanna to disarm him?"

Aaron blinked. "I should talk to Deanna. Don't be stopping by the pantry before I do, though."

"You have the best ideas."

"Oh, shut up."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Even his teeth hurt.

There was a small hand resting on his forearm, the thumb making circles, and a familiar feel in the air.

"Caro." It was harder to speak than it should be. His tongue was thick and dry, and his shoulder, arm, and chest felt like they were on fire.

"It's me." Her voice was soft and far off sounding, but she got the most important part across good and quick. "We're safe."

"I get bit?"

"You were shot. And I gather from your question you don't remember who did the shooting?"

"Dunno. Double the watch. How's the buildup at the fences?"

Opening his eyes was too much work, so he just imagined her rolling her eyes at him.

"Daryl? Where are you?"

"The hell?"

"You hit your head when you fell. And you've had a fever for three days."

Oh. That must've scared her. "In our cell. Just don't ask me what day it is 'cause ain't nobody knows that shit."

Opening his eyes officially went from 'hard" to 'more trouble than it's worth'. He gave up on that, and instead reached his good hand over to rest it on top of hers. Everything felt like it was under water.

Carol sighed. "Rest now. I'll be here when you wake up."

Something was wrong. "What's wrong?" He gave the eyelid moving thing one more try, and immediately knew why she had sounded odd. They weren't in the prison. "Oh." He could feel himself trying to panic, but everything was too heavy and weird to let the feeling through.

Carol leaned over him so he could see her face. He didn't like the concern in her eyes. And what the hell was she... "The hell you wearin?"

That startled a laugh out of her. "That's the first thing you ask?"

"Ain't right."

"You're going to be fine. They gave you some pain – "

"Oh, hell no! I'm fine." Or he would be, if he could just manage to sit up. "Know better than that shit!" His words were slurred in a way that sounded too much like his old man. The panic broke through the glass that had been keeping it distant. Trying to set his chest and back on fire.

"Well, I thought you were dying and I didn't want you to hurt while you did it, so you'll just have to forgive me," Carol snapped. She wasn't teasing him, either. There was real fear and hurt in her voice. She was blinking too fast, the way she did when she was forcing herself not to cry and she was pushing down on his shoulders. It was far too easy for her to hold him down.

Daryl stopped trying to sit up and let himself fall back. He focused on her until things started to settle back into their proper rhythms. Odd how she could hold him down with a look and anyone else doing it made him lose his shit. Even Merle would've had to sit on him by now. It was just because it was Carol. She was probably the only person on the planet he trusted to make sure nobody gave him more than they had to.

He could be pissed off, though. She knew how he felt about that shit. The drugs and the manhandling both. The whole exchange joined up with whatever some asshole dosed him with while he wasn't lookin' and had him all over woozy. The world couldn't decide if it wanted to spin or fade away.

"What is it? What they put in me?"

"Don't worry so much. I'm taking care of it."

"Stop it. Dn't let 'em. Caro – promise. I don' want…"

"You rest now. I'm watching it. You'll be fine, I promise."

"Just you, though, right? You didn't let one of these assholes dig around in there did you?"

"Pete is a real doctor, Daryl. But I stayed and watched every move he made."

Well, that was just going to have to be okay. "Aaron okay?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Were leavin'. You give me cookies. Was gonna sneak 'em when he weren't lookin' so I didn't have to share." Damn, he must be high as a kite if he was running off at the mouth like this. "I'm high."

Someone who wasn't her snorted.

"The hell's here that's not you?"

"Aaron."

"Oh." He thought a second. "I snuck 'em past him, didn't I?"

"I don't think that's all you've snuck past me," Aaron said. Carol must've nodded at him or something, because he came closer. "I was just stopping by to check. I'll come again tomorrow."

"Be at that house tomorrow. M'Carol's gonna take care of that. Ain'tcha?"

"No, I am not. You're going to stay here until you can walk there under your own power," Carol said.

"Don't wanna. Rick'll help me. Glenn, too." Wait a minute. There was something. Something important. "I saw her."

"Daryl?"

"Why ain't we at home?"

"You're too high for conversation. Go back to sleep."

His body betrayed him by obeying her.

Daryl didn't know how many times he'd been awake before, but he had a vague sense that it had been more than once. He had fuzzy, half-there memories of Carol being there, in a string of ever more ridiculous outfits. Sweater sets and old lady pants that hid her from the strangers.

She wasn't here now.

"Carol?"

Glenn jerked awake so spectacularly that he went one direction and the chair went another.

And man, laughing hurt.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball," Glenn said. "Seriously, if you want to be aware enough to laugh at me that's a good thing."

Daryl rolled his eyes. "Carol was here before."

"You're in Alexandria, you were shot in the shoulder and it got infected, your fever was really high for too long, and Carol will be back soon. Next question?"

The way Glenn rattled off the most important bits bothered him. It sounded too much like something that had been repeated often. "Damn. How out of it was I?"

"You were swinging a knife around and trying to kill Aaron when he got you back here, if that gives you an idea. And seeing things. Don't worry, Carol handled it."

"The hell you mean, handled it?"

Glenn sighed. "I mean that she walked straight up to you, ducked under the knife, put her hand on your face, and you turned into a blubbering manchild who'd gotten his pacifier back. So, no being mean to her, okay? I think she was really freaked out this time."

Shit. Damn. Fuck. "Fuck. What did I do? I didn't – no, nevermind."

Glenn smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"You little shit."

Daryl had just opened his mouth to say that, but someone beat him to it.

Carol was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed, glaring at Glenn. She had her boots on. He really liked those boots. He might put up with the sweater sets if she kept the boots.

Not that it mattered. They weren't like that.

"Sorry, Carol." Glenn said. "I was just really glad that you're back, Daryl. I'll see you guys later."

"I didn't do that did I?"

"You didn't do anything wrong. If you don't remember, though, that may be for the best."

"Fuck."

"Well, you weren't in any shape to do that." The teasing lacked the spark that it used to have. The teasing hint that maybe, just maybe, one of them was serious. Instead, there was an awkward distance that he didn't know how to cross. He hated it.

"But I ain't bit."

"No." She moved across the room and pulled Glenn's chair close to the table he was laying on. "You were not. You scared me, Pookie."

"Yeah? Sorry."

"Don't say that. You don't have anything to be sorry about." She bit her lip, and Daryl was suddenly very aware of the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt. The blankets were pulled all the way up to his chin, but whoever had checked him and had been thorough, and they never bothered to give his clothes back.

"Sounds like there's a but in there somewhere."

She tucked the blankets around him more firmly. "I checked you. The doctor removed the bullet and handled your meds, but even he didn't get the whole show. I had to be sure. I don't trust him."

"S'okay," he said. It had happened before. She knew that he preferred her to anyone else. Carol – well, she was Carol. She'd been his go-to for things like getting stitched up or checked for scratches forever now. "What's wrong? Somethin' ain't right."

"We can talk more about it later, but for now I need you to go along with me on this. There's a bit of speculation going on about what we…well, what we are. To each other. I've been going with just not confirming or denying…"

"Ain't none of their business what the hell we are or we ain't. You tell 'em to fuck right off." He looked away from her. He wasn't sure he was up to seeing her face while she got all embarrassed. "I know you don't want that, what they think don't mean shit. We're still us, though, right?"

Carol sighed, and he couldn't resist. He had to look at her.

She was sitting with her elbows on her knees, all curled over, covering her face with her hands.

"Oh. 's me you want to fuck off, ain't it?"

Her head flew up, "No! I just, I thought it would make you uncomfortable. I don't want that."

Something wasn't computing. "That don't make sense. Why would I be that?"

She shrugged. "Let's not do this right now. You're still hurt. How's the pain, do you need something?"

Daryl blinked. "You let them give me that shit, didn't you?"

"You only had enough to keep you from moving during the surgery and to let you rest. I promise."

"Liar. I ain't hurtin' bad enough."

"That's because you're mostly healed. It's been a week. The antibiotics may be making you a little woozy."

He lost a week?

A week of seeing her every time he woke up. Enough times that Glenn was a shock. A week of mumbling who knew what while he was under the influence of…

"What did I say?"

Carol laughed. "Mostly that my clothes look ridiculous. You were glad to see me in proper footwear, and that made Aaron laugh for some reason. You didn't say anything under the influence of painkillers that would really bother you. I promise."

"And they think we're together because I got sappy?"

There. That look. The one that jumped up then ran back behind her mask.

"I went a little - let's just say overboard. When I thought I was going to lose you? Glenn at least kept me from stripping you down and checking for bites on the lawn, but I – well, the only way not to completely blow my cover was to let them think that we'd been working our way through a hard time. So that means it's up to you whether we make up or split up."

"I'm sure as hell not splittin' up."

"You aren't under any obligation."

"You want me to leave you the hell alone, just say so. Don't go makin' some weird excuse."

"I don't want anything of the sort."

"Coulda fooled me. Been runnin' from me since you found us all the way back at Terminus." Daryl cleared his throat. It was now or never. He was usually a never kind of guy, but the very thought of that option made his hands shake and his palms sweat. "Real sorry I didn't find you instead. Governor was just there, didn't even get to hit Rick once afore he showed up, and then everything just went all to shit. Then you found us, but it's different. So don't go sayin' it's me that needs to decide anything, I told you when we's lookin' for…I'm right here. Tryin'."

She looked a little too surprised for his comfort. "Okay. Maybe we can go slow?"

"Fuckin' turtle outrun us last Winter sometime. No. You're all in or all out. I ain't playin' no soap opera bullshit for these people."

Carol smiled. Nodded. Wiped at her eyes and bit her bottom lip, then nodded again. "I'm in."

"That's decided, then," he said.

"I think so, yes."

"Anything else I need to know before you get me my clothes and I go back to the house?"

Carol sighed. "I'll bring you some clothes, but you have to promise to stay here until the doctor releases you. No fighting him, no matter how much you want to."

"You don't need to be sleepin' in no chair."

"It's fine," she said. "You've never been awake this long. I think you'll probably be home tonight or in the morning, anyway." She was avoiding his eyes again.

"Okay." There was still something bothering her, something that she didn't want to say but obviously needed to. "What else?"

"It's just – no one should say anything to you. But if they do, Deanna or Reg or maybe Aaron? They would be the only ones. If they say anything to you about it? Sophia was yours."

All the air left the room. "What'd I say?" Damn. "Didn't mean it. I'm – "

"Don't you say you're sorry again. It was nothing like that. You were hallucinating. You mentioned her. She was obviously someone to both of us, so I just made her someone to both of us. You can set them straight if you want."

"You want me to? They won't never mention – "

"That's up to you, Daryl. I'll just, I'll just go get you those clothes."

She was gone before he could come up with words to say to her.


	4. Chapter 4

*****Author's Note*****

Thanks so much for the kind reviews. I hope you all continue to enjoy it.

**Chapter 4**

_If they say anything to you about it? Sophia was yours._

_Sophia was yours._

Daryl knew that he'd said something when she said that. It must have been an okay thing to say, because even though she'd run like Satan himself was hot on her heels, she hadn't seemed mad or anything. Clothes, right? She was just going to get his clothes.

There were clean clothes on the chair.

She hadn't really left to fetch clothes, anyway, and they both knew it.

The act of sitting up was still a lot more difficult than it should be, though, and truth be told Daryl wasn't all that anxious to chase her down and try to pry what she meant out of her. The world was still a little fuzzy, and there was a part of him that wondered if he was maybe still dreaming. If he could just remember what he might have said…but recent memory was a hazy jumble of faces and voices without real words. Mumblings that he couldn't glean any meaning from overlaid with pain and, just on the edge, something soft and good.

_Sophia was yours._

Forever ago, when the world was changed but not yet lost, he had imagined what it would be like to watch a little girl run across a field and into her mama's arms. He had imagined it a thousand different ways. It had started with the idea that he could slip away, quiet-like, and just watch them. Later, though? When Carol would look at him like he was _there_, like she saw some version of him that was the way he wanted to be and not some preconceived notion of who he must surely be, it had changed. He'd started to let himself think about what he could be to the girl. He started thinking that maybe there was some use to knowing the things that kids shouldn't ever have to know.

He had thought that he could maybe help Carol with her, since the girl's piece of shit old man was gone. He could talk to her about how noticing all the little tells of a person who might turn on you in the next second was good training for not getting surprised by Walkers. Maybe explain to her how noticing the tension in a set of shoulders and the way someone bigger and stronger than you moved could be good training for noticing the marks that people and animals left behind them.

He never thought he could be anything to Carol, not back then. He was so far beneath a woman like her that every day felt like waiting for her to figure out she was just imagining what she kept acting like she saw in him. And after he knew that all of it was just his dumb ass making up stories? How him wanting to be something he wasn't had made him tell Carol, over and over again, that there was hope because he was seeing signs?

Sophia'd felt like his. Felt more like his than he wanted to admit to himself. More than that, she'd felt like _him_, when he was a little fucker just trying to dodge swing after swing until he could get away. She ran because she was _conditioned_ to run. She ran because running was _always_ safer than standing. She ran because the world was scary and just kept getting scarier and nobody had taught her that she could fight back yet. She was him in a way that was a lot more obvious looking back than it had been at the time.

So, he made it all about him.

_Sophia wasn't mine!_

He'd acted a damn fool, grieving his fantasies while the person he wanted to please, grieved for her real little girl. At the time, he couldn't have explained why it hurt so much if he'd been inclined to try. Now, he kinda wondered how much of trying to save her was wishing that someone, anyone, had at least _tried_ to save him.

He couldn't understand how Carol could ever forgive him for it. They'd talked about it once, during the long winter between the farm and the prison. Just once. It was awkward and painful and lasted about three sentences, and afterwards they seldom spoke of Sophia. Rarely, when they were alone and no one else was near enough to hear, Carol would share bits and pieces of her memories of Sophia with him. The good bits. He never knew what to say, never knew how to act beyond just listening. But as time passed, his dreams of finding the little girl changed from how it would have felt for him to be a hero to how it would have felt for the three of them to be a family.

_Sophia was yours._

She didn't know. She couldn't know what those words did to his insides. The jumbled mass of guilt and longing that punched its way through his chest, and the hollowness that chased after it because it wasn't real.

It was all part of her little housewife charade. Plugging him into Ed's place.

Well, he wasn't Edward fucking Peletier.

_Sophia was yours._

But he put an end to that, didn't he? All in or all out. No playing at it for the natives.

She said she was in.

He didn't have the first damned clue if that meant what he thought it meant. Surely there was more to it than that. Otherwise, they would have stopped circling one another at a safe distance ages ago. It couldn't, after all, be as simple as just…asking her.

Hell, no. He must've misunderstood something. He still had some of that shit running through his veins or something.

By the time he made his way over to the side table and the neatly folded pile of clean clothes that could only have been put there by the woman who just left to find more of them, he was breathing hard and there was sweat dripping from his forehead. His left arm was next to useless and his right hand was holding the sheet around him.

He was not going to need help to get dressed. But figuring out how to achieve that was at least enough to get those other, more uncomfortable, thoughts out of his head for a few minutes. If he bent at the knees, he could reach them without having to bend over and making the dizziness worse.

"Hey, don't do that," Rick said.

Daryl huffed. "Putting some damn clothes on."

"Okay. Sure. Just try not to fall on your ass when you do it." Rick's hand under his elbow started out hesitant but grew stronger when Daryl leaned into the assist. "Come on. I'll help you to the chair and bring the clothes to you."

"You ain't puttin' my damn pants on me."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

It felt better to sit down than he really wanted anyone else to know.

Rick dumped the pile of clothes in his lap like it was no big deal, then moved back, resting his hands on his hips.

Rick Grimes - shaved, primped, and back in uniform - felt surreal. Out of context. _Wrong_.

"Can't remember who shot me. Gotta be a bad thing."

Rick blinked, "You let us worry about that. You need to concentrate on getting back on your feet."

His tone said it all. The urgency there wasn't for Daryl to be well, it was for Daryl to be well enough to fight.

"Won't let you down. What do you know so far?"

"That's not what I – "Rick ran one hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose in a gesture that Daryl had come to look on with trepidation. This was Rick walking the fine edge between pragmatism and paranoia, and Daryl didn't want to be the thing that pushed him in the wrong direction.

"Okay," Daryl said. "You just let me know when you need me. I'll be ready. I won't –"

"I don't doubt that," Rick said, softly. "I wanted to talk to you about something else."

Oh. Well, hell. Daryl didn't want to talk about anything else that Rick might think he needed to talk about right now.

"Don't wanna talk about anything else right now."

"I get that. I do. But you need to know what people are saying."

"Know all about that. You got a problem with it?"

"You don't?"

He looked so surprised that Daryl was suddenly unsure. "Think we might be talking about different things," he said. "'Cause I ain't heard a damn thing that you ought to think I'd have a problem with."

Sometime when he was distracted, Rick had dropped to the floor and untangled his feet from his pants legs. Daryl ignored that and started shoving his good arm into his shirt. Rick straightened and stepped back so fast it looked almost like he thought Daryl was about to start swinging.

"Some of the locals got the wrong idea about you and Carol. So far no one has come out and asked, but there's gossip. Look, you've been outside a lot, and that's fine, it's good. But some people have been uncomfortable, and I think it might be – "

"Ain't wrong," Daryl said, bluntly. "Ain't none of their business, but ain't like they got the wrong idea."

Rick blinked. He started to say something, stopped, then shook his head and started again, "I mean that they – "

"It ain't your business, either."

"Daryl?"

"Don't act like you don't know. I let a lot of shit go, 'cause the world sucks and I had to, but forgave ain't forgot, and you need to back the hell off of me right the hell now. Ain't their business. Ain't your business. Me and her are between me and her."

Someone knocked on the door, and Daryl looked away from his old friend to see Aaron standing there, a stack of clothes under one arm.

"Sorry to interrupt. Carol asked if I could drop these by. It looks like you have it covered, though, so – "

"Run out of here so fast she forgot she brought clothes already," Daryl grumbled. "Woman won't ever just slow down a little."

Rick made a sound that was a little too close to a laugh for Daryl's comfort.

"Is that why you were in such a hurry when I came in?"

A more clueless asshole than Rick Grimes had never been born. "Get the hell out of here so I can put on some pants." Daryl was only half-sure he would be able to finish dressing on his own. One hand was holding the edges of his button-down together and the other was busy being useless. "First, get this damn mummy wrappin' off me so I can – "

"Not me!" Rick said, holding his hands out in front of him. "Bandages stay put."

"How the hell am I gonna wear a shirt all tied down like this?" The bandaging wrapped all the way around his chest and upper arm, pinning his left arm to his side nearly to the elbow.

"The idea is for you to not move the arm until there's less chance of pulling out your stitches," Aaron said. He moved closer than Daryl liked, and Rick just stared, allowing it. "If you just drape it over the shoulder, you might be able to button enough to keep it mostly closed."

The extra clothes were deposited neatly on the table, and the other man reached out as if to help.

"Did I fuckin' say you could touch me?" He liked Aaron. He did. The hurt look on the other man's face was a pain in the ass, too, because he was pretty sure the guy thought that came from a place that it really didn't.

Aaron backed up.

Rick's expression was so accusatory that Daryl wanted to just hit him. Probably, he acknowledged, because he knew that if he did Rick would forgive him for it. He could yell at him. Call him every name in the book. Maybe even punch him in the face, because he really felt like hitting _something_ right now and Rick was here. And a day or three from now all would be forgotten.

"Daryl doesn't like to be touched by anyone," Rick said in a tone that, in Daryl's opinion, fully explained why Merle had called him Officer Friendly. "It's nothing personal."

"Not a damn two-year-old, either. If I could get a word in edgewise I could explain my own self."

"He's also in a mood," Rick sighed.

That was – well, that was fairly accurate to be honest.

Damn.

Daryl closed his eyes and counted backwards from ten, then met Rick's eyes and said, "I can't get my own damn pants on."

And Carol knew he wouldn't be able to. And she left. And then sent Aaron instead of coming back.

"You ready for help?"

No. He was not ready for damned help.

"Shit."

"I promise not to look," Rick sounded like a man at the edge of his patience.

"Nah. Carol'll be back later. Think I'll just sit here."

Rick glanced at Aaron, then at Daryl, then at the doorway. "People know you're awake. You could have company any minute."

Asshole.

"You ever say a fuckin' word -"

"Our secret," Rick said.

"I'll keep everyone out until you're ready," Aaron added, nodding before turning to go.

And he was an asshole too, damnit. Daryl didn't know why Aaron had to be so damned nice all the time. It made it almost impossible to stay mad at the guy.

They'd been through things like this before. Rick waited while Daryl took a few breaths, then took one deep one and held it. It didn't take long at all, really, but when Daryl finally exhaled, he was standing and mostly dressed.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"What I'm here for," Rick nodded. He met Daryl's eyes for a moment that stretched into the awkward, then whispered, "the part about Sophia."

"Mine," Daryl choked out. "Ain't talkin' about that."

"Explains a lot, actually. Daryl – "he seemed to think better of saying whatever it was he almost said, and instead he whispered, "I'm sorry. For a lot of things."

It wasn't until he was gone that Daryl realized Rick had somehow taken him to mean she had really been his all along. Their leader was probably creating a whole backstory now. Some lifetime television story of the construction worker and the cheating housewife running through his head, trying to make all the pieces fit. Lookin' back and changing the context of every interaction since the quarry.

Daryl doubted that was quite what Carol had in mind.

Son of a bitch.

Carol was a coward.

She thought, once, that she was over her cowardice. That she moved past it. That she had grown strong.

But she just handed Aaron a stack of clothes and sent him off toward Daryl while she scurried back into the house and pulled the biggest pot she could find out of the cabinet. There was still venison to be turned into a stew, and if water chestnuts and canned asparagus weren't traditional stew ingredients, at least the dented up can of potatoes would add some more bulk.

Carol needed to get dinner on. Because Daryl was out there, and Carol was in here, and Carol was a coward.

It didn't matter, anyway.

She could feel every heartbeat at the top of her head, and every muscle in her back and neck ached.

_All in or all out._

Of course, he didn't know what she'd done. Didn't know she murdered a child in her care. Didn't know that she had been so blind that she let that child kill her sister, all the while thinking that she'd gotten through to the girl.

_It's up to you, Daryl._

That's just it, though, isn't it? Everything was up to him.

"Need help?" Carol hadn't even heard her enter the kitchen, but there stood Michonne, holding a can of tomatoes. That would work.

"Those will go nicely. Thank you."

Michonne blinked, then said, "Yeah. Not what I meant."

She really and truly could not endure one more solicitous smile from someone who didn't know her.

"I've got it. Thank you, though." She smiled. Nodded. Cheery Carol. Everything's fine here. Move along.

"When I first got to the prison, I wasn't in a good headspace. I wasn't in a good headspace for most of our time together," Michonne said.

"I don't need a heart to heart chat. I need to get this on the stove or we'll all be hungry tonight."

"That's fine. I can stay and help, or I can go and leave you to it. So long as you know that I'm here, and I've been there, and I can listen. Or keep other people away if that's what you need. Even Daryl."

Carol stopped moving.

Something deep in her chest was pushing outward, as if it were about to burst from her body like an Alien in a horror movie. She just kept blinking and breathing until the sensation receded enough for her to speak. "I don't need Daryl to stay away," she whispered, "but everyone else is fair game."

"Really? Because when he was unconscious no one could pull you away, but now the that he's awake, well, here you are."

"He needs a few minutes."

"Ah," Michonne smiled and crossed her arms. "He needs."

"You know what? I could use your help, after all." Carol smiled her best perfect housewife smile. "I was doing a stew. Thank you so much."

She made it all the way to her room and closed the door behind her. Locked it. Stretched out on the bed as if she weren't far too wired to take a nap.

She stared at the ceiling until the sunlight through the window turned muted and gray.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, Carol pulled her happy housewife persona around her, took a deep breath, and slipped out of her bedroom and through the back door without being noticed by any of the people she was avoiding. There was a slight chill in the air and she wrapped her arms around herself. She'd gone back and forth between the house she stayed in and the one that was being used as the doctor's office so many times in the last days that the route had become habit.

The crowd gathered on the porch of her destination was a surprise, though.

Aaron had come to be almost expected, but Olivia and Kim looked out of place and nervous. Deanna was there as well, and Jessie and Sam for some reason that Carol just couldn't wrap her mind around. It was so odd, in fact, that at first Carol thought something must have happened while she was napping. But then she saw Michonne leaning against the railing, looking some combination of smug and empathetic that made Carol's fingers itch for her knife.

"We don't mean to intrude," Deanna said. "We just wanted to stop by and see how Mister Dixon is getting along."

"Rick told everybody he was awake and grumpy," Michonne said.

Grumpy? Daryl? Carol sighed and rolled her eyes. "What happened?"

Michonne laughed. A genuine laugh. Carol exhaled.

"He's had visitors. Glenn chased everyone out, said he had to talk to Daryl alone about something important and he would let us know when we were allowed back in."

A perfectly timed, "Ain't none of your damn business!" could be heard from inside.

Carol winced. "Duty calls. I'll save him."

"Do you think he'll hurt Glenn?" That was Kim. Olivia elbowed her in the side, hard enough that Carol might have winced in sympathy if she didn't think the woman deserved more than an elbow.

"Don't be stupid," Carol said, in a tone that implied the woman probably didn't have the mental capacity to avoid it. "I'm saving Daryl from Glenn. The little gossip." She moved toward the door, nodding at the ones she couldn't ignore. "We appreciate you all checking in. We're fine."

Michonne snickered. "I thought everything was Glenn's business."

"Hmmmm."

She let the screen door swing closed behind her, making her way into the room the noise was coming from. Just outside the room, she paused to listen for a moment. Michonne's humor was enough to tell her that nothing dire was going on, but it was generally best to know what kind of conversation you were walking in on.

Glenn wasn't gossiping. Not when she arrived, anyway.

"They're talking about planting in the spring, but there are a lot of people here to feed until then. We still don't know who shot you, but we can't just not go out, not with fall coming on fast. I'm suggesting that we double or triple the number of people on a team, there are enough people here and most of them haven't been doing anything productive. We need to leave enough people who know how to fight just in case, and then there's getting any plans at all approved by Deanna."

Carol peaked around the doorframe. Daryl was sitting up in a chair, dressed, but it was obvious to her that he should have moved back to the bed a while ago. His eyes were closed, and his head was tilted back and leaning against the wall, but he managed half a nod when Glenn finished talking.

"Y'know who you need to plan that out?"

Glenn sounded glum when he said, "Carol. Need her to sit down and make up some of those lists she would make, telling everybody what to do."

"Mmmm."

"You make me sound bossy," Carol said as she came in, just to watch Glenn's face. She wasn't disappointed. He gaped for a second, then shook his head as if to clear it, then said, "Not bossy! Just organized. Look, if it's out there I can get it back here. But this place wastes more than…" he trailed off, then said, "Daryl! That's not what we were talking about. I want to know –"

"You have a porch full of visitors, Daryl. Are you up for holding court?"

Daryl had opened his eyes and was staring at her. "You back?"

He didn't just mean back in the room. She knew that. She made an affirmative sound in his general direction, then slipped past Glenn to drop a kiss on the top of Daryl's head. "I'm back."

"Half expected you to send Aaron again."

Caught. "I took a little nap. Which is exactly what it looks like you should have been doing."

"Short Round wanted to pester me for shit that ain't his business," he sounded annoyed, but the corners of his lips were twitching.

"Is that so?"

"Really?" Glenn sent him a disgusted look. "That's what you're going with? Trying to annoy me as a distraction? I just want to know when – "

"Ain't your business."

"Rick said – "Glenn stopped, his face contorting as he visibly tried to figure out how to ask his question without actually saying what Rick told him.

Daryl knew, though, because the little half smile disappeared and his eyebrows drew together, "Watch it."

"Yeah," Glenn said, less teasing. "Good idea. I'm just gonna go and let your visitors know we're finished. We can talk about that other stuff later."

Carol reached for his arm as he passed her and whispered, "Give us five minutes?"

"Sure thing."

Carol waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before saying, "I don't think I've seen him act like that in a long time." She found a space beside Daryl's chair where she could lean against the wall. "I've missed it."

Daryl looked sideways at her and said, "Little shit's gonna run his mouth all over the place. Hope you meant it when you said you were up for this."

She brushed his hair back so she could see him better. He only flinched a little. He hadn't done that in a long time. Not since the Farm, really. He'd been leaning into her touch instead of away from it since the winter they nearly froze to death. He was nervous.

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it," she whispered. "I just – I'm not sure what that's going to look like. I'm not sure what you want it to look like."

His shifted enough that his head leaned against her hip instead of against the wall, and she caught him blinking hard to keep his eyes from drifting closed again.

"Don't care what it looks like. Looks however it looks," he slurred. "Just want us back. Anything you willin' to give me on top o' that's a bonus."

"Glenn said to come on in," Deanna said. Olivia was with her, but Kim was either still waiting outside or decided to spare them all and left.

"Don't remember who shot me," Daryl said.

Deanna smiled. "So I've been told. We really just wanted to check on you. It's good to see you lucid. I don't know how many people it would have taken to get you here if Carol hadn't been there. You gave people quite a scare."

Carol felt him stiffen and struggle to sit up, "I hurt somebody? Ain't nobody said —"

"She means by almost dying," Carol interrupted, burying her fingers in his hair and pulling his head back toward her. "You didn't hurt anyone. Not even a little bit." He deflated immediately; a sure sign he was still struggling to stay awake.

"I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Doctor Anderson says you've been doing very well, all things considered." Deanna had a look on her face not unlike the one usually worn by young children while looking at kittens. At least Daryl was too out of it to notice.

"Should be out lookin' by now," Daryl mumbled, his eyes at half-mast. "Can't be a good thing. Gotta find 'em before they find this place. It's got…Glenn's got some…" he drifted off for a few seconds, then blinked and continued, "Stuff I done forgot." He closed his eyes again and rubbed his cheek against Carol's hip. "You do the talkin', yeah? Just gonna listen a minute."

Carol frowned. He was absolutely not himself. Tired could only account for so much, and she was familiar with all the many faces of Daryl Dixon by now. "Daryl?"

"Hmmm?"

"When did they change your IV?"

"Doc did it when Glenn was…" he jerked upright with a curse, pulling away from her and fumbling for the line running into his arm. "Fuckin' high. He put more of that shit in there. Told me it was just the medicine." His voice had gone up an octave, and he was shaking. The IV was in his good arm, and he was trying to bend so he could get the hand of the immobilized arm high enough to reach the tubing.

"Stop it. You're going to hurt yourself."

"Shut the fuck up and get it out. Get it out! I ain't takin' that shit, Carol."

She reached over yanked, not bothering to try to be gentle.

"There. Look. It's out. We'll find some pills you can take for the antibiotics."

"Don't you let them give me more of that shit. Had too much already. They do that to you. Damn doctors get you hooked on shit. No doctors. Just you."

Deanna had taken Olivia by the arm and moved away with her, giving Carol room to deal with him and giving everyone the illusion of privacy.

"I'll take care of it. Take a deep breath. It's out. You didn't have much at all. Just enough to put you back to sleep."

"I don't want none of that shit. Shoulda checked it better. You said they stopped."

"They did. He probably gave it to you because you're moving around. He just wanted to manage your pain, Daryl."

"Wanted to get me high. I want somethin' I'll ask for a fuckin' aspirin. Had a hell of a lot worse than this without no heroin."

"There's a difference between – "

"Tell that to my brother."

"Daryl..."

"Know what the damned difference is? Six months. Difference is six months."

Carol blinked, sighed, and said, "I won't let them give you any more narcotics. I promise. Come on, let's get you to the bed."

"Leave my clothes on."

"Well, first time for everything, I suppose," Carol teased, just to lighten the mood.

Daryl ignored her teasing and said, "Stay. He'll be back."

"I know. I shouldn't have left. I'll stay."

"Take me to that house. Get me outta here."

Carol sighed. "Daryl, I'm going to have to get someone in here to help me move you to the bed. Just sleep it off, and then we'll talk about a change of location, okay?"

"I'm high as fuck."

"Yes."

"I can't shut up. I keep sayin' shit."

"I know."

"You got real pretty eyes."

"Well, if you're going to run off at the mouth, that's the best way to do it," Carol smirked at him.

Daryl winced.

"Aaron is outside, we'll just send him in to help," Deanna interjected.

Carol wondered if she'd used that politician tone so long it became her natural way of speaking, or if she sounded different in her own living room. She met the other woman's eyes, trying to tell her to keep this incident between them without saying anything out loud. "He's been wanting to see Michonne, if she's still outside. Or Aaron, of course. Thank you so much for stopping by."

Aaron rolled his eyes, but it was mostly for show. His Eric was a genius. Put him together with Deanna and, well, Aaron suspected they were about to do more for Dixon in an afternoon than he'd managed with three months of long recruiting and scavenging trips.

It wasn't even a second after Deanna strolled away and Michonne left to help with the patient, that the others on the porch burst into conversation.

"There is no way she's really married to that guy. They're just trying to keep him from being kicked out of here," Kim said, shivering dramatically. "He's going to kill somebody. Just you wait."

Aaron didn't get a chance to open his mouth before Olivia jumped in. "You're being an idiot. You didn't see what I just saw."

"Really?" Eric was using his 'I sense some really juicy gossip' tone.

"That was the sweetest thing I ever saw in my life," Olivia said. "Or the saddest, or maybe even both. He was begging her to forgive him again when we went in."

That didn't sound like Dixon at all. It did sound like Olivia, though, and Aaron stifled a smile. His boyfriend was a genius. Everyone in town was in and out of the pantry at one time or another, and it was obvious what the topic at hand was going to be. Still, there was useful and then there was overkill. He brushed his hand across the small of Eric's back and got an elbow nudge in return.

"The way she's been hovering, I'm surprised begging is necessary," Eric whispered, eyeing the door.

"Well," Olivia said, frowning, "That might be an exaggeration. He said he would take anything she would give him, though, I heard that with my own ears. And he kept cuddling her. And then when he had his panic attack, he was totally dependent on her."

"A panic attack? Really? That guy? And you think that's not fake?" Kim scoffed.

"He apparently has some kind of phobia around doctors and drugs," Olivia said. Her level of irritation with the other woman was increasing with every revelation. She didn't appear to like the way everything she said was being discounted by her friend.

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Aaron said. Eric was giving him looks suggesting that there was heavy lifting to be done, and he wasn't doing all of it. Aaron wasn't much for gossip, but he knew the value of a well placed idea. "He had dinner out our house instead of going to the welcome party because he's really shy and doesn't like crowds."

"And you don't get muscles like that without being a health nut," Eric interjected. "I mean, it's not like he could've been getting enough protein and carbs to keep up that muscle mass out there. Can you imagine what he must have looked like before he was starving?"

Aaron frowned. Daryl wasn't that muscular. "He's not that –"

"Yes, dear. You are much bigger and stronger."

"Shut up."

"You guys are so cute," Olivia said. "But Eric's right. I'm sure it was that. Anyway, I'm going to get back to work. They don't need us hanging around out here."

"I can't believe you're —"

"Come on. We need to talk," Olivia turned and started walking, and after a moment, Kim followed her, muttering.

Aaron watched until they turned the corner, then turned to his boyfriend, "I'm glad you're on my side."

"You should be," Eric grinned, winking. "Now come on. There's much work to be done."

"I think they'll do most of it."

"Hmmm. Probably. Better safe than sorry, though."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Daryl was obstinate, mouthy, and obviously shaken by how difficult the move from the chair to the bed turned out to be. Michonne had spent a lot of time with him back before the prison fell, scouring the countryside for any sign of The Governor. Sometimes, she found herself thinking about how things may have turned out if they had been successful. She considered him a friend, her first friend in the prison community and the only one who seemed to understand her back then. Now she had other. And in some undefinable, separate category, she had Rick and Carl and Judith. Sometimes she felt like maybe there might be something growing there that she wasn't quite ready to acknowledge.

But Daryl was her first friend.

She asked him once, while waiting out a thunderstorm in the empty shell of an old service station and splitting a Snicker bar, what there was between him and Carol. She got the same answer she'd heard him give a few others.

"Ain't like that."

"It isn't like what?"

"Anything you thinkin'. Somethin' goin' on with you and Andrea before she died?"

She'd taken the rebuff as a command to mind her own business, and never asked again. Watching them now, as Carol promised over and over again not to leave while he was asleep, she thought he had answered her question more completely than she realized at the time. She had, in what she thought of as an exercise in time killing curiosity, ripped a scab off a wound. And he returned the favor.

He was talking in circles. He would tell Carol that he was high, curse the doctor for giving him the meds, make Carol promise not to let anyone near him, and then start to drift off only to jerk awake and declare himself high, starting the loop all over again. Carol's tone never changed. Her thumb was stroking the inside of Daryl's elbow, where the IV used to be, in a steady pattern. There weren't any declarations of undying love, and none of the apologies that so many others were whispering about, but the matter-of-fact interaction somehow managed to feel both mundane and intimate.

It felt like a long time before Carol was sighing and meeting her eyes.

She spent a portion of that time wondering how she could have lived in such close proximity with this woman for so long without — well, without noticing her. Carol cooked and organized for them. Then in one expectation shattering instance, she saved them, but faded back into the background so quickly that Michonne found herself wondering if the Carol she had seen had been as much of a façade as the one smiling her way around Alexandria.

"You can go. I wouldn't put it past him to wake up if I were to move right now. I'll give him a few minutes to settle before I find a chair," Carol said.

"I was thinking about enjoying some time on the porch," Michonne shrugged. "I'm sorry."

Carol blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I don't think we've ever done much more than exchange pleasantries. I'm sorry for that. So, to start to make up for it? I'm just going to find a place to settle and tell anyone who comes here looking for more gossip to mind their own business."

"You don't have to do that. There's nothing to make up for."

"I don't have to do anything. I only do what I want to do. We don't really know one another. And I've learned things about you that it should have been your decision to share with me, without you ever deciding any such thing. I can't — the idea of a hundred strangers dissecting my losses — I didn't tell a soul about my son until I found Rick and Carl after the fences fell. So, I'll give you a break from it."

Carol winced, slightly, but didn't look away. "I didn't know."

"Exactly my point," Michonne answered.

The front porch had a rocking chair. It was comfortable.

When Daryl woke, he was himself again.

That is to say, he wouldn't look directly at her for the first five minutes, and then he started darting glances out of the corner of his eye. "How bad I get?"

Carol grinned. "You're fine. How are you feeling?"

"Like I made a damned fool o' myself."

"Well, you can forget that line of thought right now, because you didn't do any such thing. Now, no lying, how much pain are you in?"

"Sore. Not too bad. But if I stay in bed one more damned minute, I'm gonna go crazy."

"And that's probably what got you dosed. Moving around without permission."

"That don't make that shit okay."

"It does not," she said. His color was good, and his eyes were clear. "You look better. Rested."

"I'm good."

"So, jailbreak?" His head turned toward her so fast it was a wonder he didn't pull a muscle in his neck.

"Serious?"

"Well, it isn't like you weren't about to attempt it."

"Well, yeah. But I figured I'd have to fight you to get to the door."

"Nah. Let's get you home." He frowned, and she knew why. She asked anyway. "What?"

"Think Rick — hell, told him the locals didn't have the wrong idea, and he took it to mean all the ideas they got were right ideas."

It took her a half a second to decipher what he was dancing around. She didn't want to talk about this. It hadn't been long enough. It may never be long enough. A hundred years wouldn't be long enough.

"He didn't say anything," was the only response that came to mind in the moment.

"Damn well better not. Just didn't want you to be blindsided if he did. And it might be that, well, could stay here if you want. 'Cause they all gonna be up in our business when we go in the door."

"Then we sneak in while everyone is asleep, close our door, and wait until the house empties out to open it again."

"So, we're sharin' a room, then."

_Shit_. "I didn't — you said all in or all out, and I thought — we don't have to. Not if you don't want to."

"I do. Have," the tips of his ears were pink, but he didn't look away from her this time. "Wanted to a long time. Just, you said you didn't know what it would look like. Didn't know what you wanted."

Her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. This was it. The conversation they never had, even when they had it. The bits she'd been dissecting in her brain, trying to figure out a way to ask, and she just fumbled into it with a verbal slip. "You. At the end of the day? I want you. But there's a lot that —"

"All I needed to know. Let's go to our room, yeah? You can sleep, and I can hide 'til the house empties out. Then see what the hell I can do with one arm to keep from dyin' o' boredom."

She'd arrived just as the sun was dipping low in the sky, and it was deeply dark now. She estimated it to be later than midnight, but sill hours away from dawn. Michonne had slipped away when the sidewalks cleared with no more than a silent nod and a few whispers that she didn't think they would be disturbed before morning. Alexandria was asleep.

Daryl paused on the porch. "Ain't so much as a fire to see by," he said.

"I know the way. I've walked it a few times in the last week."

He put a hand on her shoulder as they negotiated the porch steps, and they both pretended it was because of the dark. It felt wrong for him to tire from such a short walk, and she blinked hard.

"Got a damned hangover from the drugs is all. Be fine tomorrow."

"Absolutely." She slid her arm around his waist, squeezing lightly, "Been a while since we had ourselves a midnight stroll."

It was a selfish, deceptive thing that she was doing. She knew that. She was soaking up time with him while he was walking beside a woman that hadn't existed for some time. She'd told him that, hadn't she? The woman who sat on a council at the prison was gone, and as soon as he got to know the person she became in the interim, he would be gone.

"Shit, this place is bigger than I thought," Daryl said. They'd been gradually slowing since they began their trek.

"There's no hurry," Carol said, "Let's just enjoy the night air for a second."

"Pffft. Can say stop and catch my breath. Ain't gotta act like I ain't about to fall on my ass from walkin'. Shit."

"Well, I was trying to be nice, but sure. Let's stop before you go down. Wouldn't want you to run out of air before I get where I'm going." she winked at him and was pleased when some of tension faded from around his eyes.

"Oh, God. Please," he groaned.

"That's supposed to be my line."

"Stop."

"I don't think you want me to." The edges of his mouth were twitching, and he was breathing easier. He was shaking his head at her, easing back into a slow walk, when the first faint sounds reached them.

_Well, shit._

"Just keep going," she whispered. Something heavy settled in the middle of her chest.

Every muscle in Daryl's body had tensed, and he glared across the space between them and the house where the muffled voices originated.

"The hell you mean just keep—"

"I mean neither of us is in any condition for a confrontation. I do not mean that we won't do anything, just that we can't do anything tonight." She tried to sound calm as she said it, and almost succeeded.

"Right. I can't even walk down the block. Ain't up to doin' what needs done."

"I know."

Silence stretched out between, interspersed with the fading curses and the unmistakable sounds of more physical things.

"They's kids in there." He muttered.

"There are." She didn't mention all the other reasons to wait. They weren't truly a part of the community yet. The people here would rather keep their familiar doctor than either of them, if it came down to it. It isn't possible to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. So many reasons to keep walking, and every one of them too familiar for comfort.

"How long you known about this?"

Carol winced. "That depends on if you mean suspected or known," she said. They were, at least, moving again.

"Known."

"For sure? Right now. Daryl —"

"No, I get it." Daryl blew out a breath.

Of course he got it. Daryl understood all the reasons to stop and all the reasons to keep walking, and he understood that both choices felt wrong. She could tell by the tension in his body and the frustration in his voice.

"One thing at a time," he said.

She hummed in agreement, and tried to concentrate on the last, short distance between them and the back door of the house that they were living in. She hadn't yet brought herself to use the word "home", and that wouldn't change tonight.

As Daryl propped himself up against the side of the house, she shook her head, trying by sheer force of will to focus on anything other than the knowledge of what was going on in the Anderson's house. She wished she could go back to when all she had were suspicions. She felt like she was buried under a pile of rocks, so overwhelmed by the number of them that moving just one seemed useless and digging her way out from under all of them felt impossible.

"Hey—" Daryl reached up and tapped the end of her nose. "One thing at a time."

"There are a million things, Daryl."

"Always have been," he answered, grinning. "But there's two of us, so that makes it like half a million."

"Only half a million?" The tension uncurled, softening and shifting into something manageable with no more than the solid presence of the man beside her. She caught herself smiling. It felt odd.

"Number one is getting' up those damned stairs without waking up any nosey assholes," Daryl whispered, frowning.

"I'm sure the stealthy hunter can manage."

"Yeah, but you're noisy."

"I am not."

"Shhh."

It took them a lot longer than Carol had planned when she decided on a whim that she would get him out of the infirmary, but eventually they were safe behind a locked door with Daryl stretched out on the bed. He was asleep before she got his boots off.


	7. Chapter 7

**Note: So chapters 5&6 never showed up? They were showing for me while logged in, and a reviewer says they got the notification (THANKS so much, jessmarkOMGtheydid!), but they weren't actually showing up with the story? So I've re-uploaded those, and hopefully they (and Chapter 7) will work this time. Fingers crossed.**

Chapter 7

Daryl came awake all at once, aching all over but more aware than he'd been since he first came to in the infirmary. It was as if just getting away from that place had allowed his brain to reset itself. He knew that jackass had been dosing him more than Carol knew, which meant that the doctor lied to Carol and disregarded what she told him. He filed that away with the other things he wasn't going to think about until he was back to a hundred percent. Instead, he turned his head enough to look at Carol.

She was curled on her side beside him, both hands tucked under her chin, her hair sticking up in tufts around her head. He could see her eyes moving beneath her eyelids, but she didn't seem to be in any kind of distress. He tried to stay as still as possible, not wanting to wake her, but he knew there wasn't much hope for that. The sun sky was starting to lighten outside the window, and he'd never known the woman to not rise with the sun. There was somebody moving about outside the door, too, and that would wake her any second now. It was probably what had woken him.

Whoever it was, if he didn't stop them, they would knock on Carol's door expecting breakfast.

He'd never actually slept in a bed with another person. He'd been on beds with other people, but never what anybody would call _in_ bed with them. Not long enough to go to sleep, anyway. It only made sense, then that he'd never realized how hard it would be to slip out of a bed without waking the other person. Weighing the odds of accidently waking Carol against the certainly of the knock that would be coming any minute now, there just wasn't anything for it. He had to try. In the end, he got lucky. She muttered something, rubbed her cheek into the pillow a few times, then settled back down. Damn if that wasn't cute.

He cracked the door open with a soft click. Rick was walking down the hall, dripping, wearing only a bright pink beach towel with a cartoon cat on it. Rick wasn't too bad. He could deal with Rick. He didn't want to, but it could have been worse.

It could have been Glenn.

"Hey," he whispered.

Rick spun around like he expected to see a Walker behind him. "You're back," he said.

"Yeah. Look, need a favor."

Rick smirked. It was a very specific type of smirk, and it made Daryl want to simultaneously run out of the house as fast as his feet could carry him and punch the other man in the face.

"You want me to make sure nobody disturbs you and Carol today?"

Well, yeah. Not for the reason he probably thought.

Not exactly that reason.

Maybe that reason?

"Yeah. Carol does all the damned cookin' around here. Get somebody else to take a turn. She's wiped out, man."

"Right. Of course. I'll take care of it. You're looking better."

"Found any signs of who shot me yet?" As distractions went, it was a good one. It wiped the smirk off the other man's face, at least.

"Nothing yet," Rick said. "A bunch of us are meeting at Deanna's again tonight. We're trying to convince them to start an armed watch. Sasha's been pushing for it since we got here, though, and we haven't had much luck."

It had been a week, and Daryl was of the opinion that if the incident was a precursor for some kind of trouble for the community, something would have happened by now. He didn't say so for several reasons. First, because there was a chance that it wasn't true, and it was always better to be prepared than to be surprised. Second, there was about as much chance of the people around here taking anything that came out of his mouth into consideration as there was of Glenn ignoring good gossip. The third, and currently most important to Daryl, reason was because it was a topic other than whatever was going on between him and Carol, and he really wanted to people to talk about something other than what was or wasn't going on between him and Carol.

He didn't even want him and Carol to have to talk about what was going between him and Carol. No more than it would take for him to be really, truly, without a doubt, one hundred percent sure that she really meant what she said, that is.

"I'm gonna get Carol to take the bandages off. Gonna be a couple more days at least before I'm good, though." If the ache in his shoulder and chest with the arm immobilized was anything to go by, it might actually be a while before he could use his bow, but he wasn't going to worry about that today.

Today was for Carol getting some sleep and convincing her to take the bandages off. One thing at a time.

Bandages off, build strength back up, kiss Carol, kill Pete Anderson.

It wasn't that long of a to-do list when he thought about it.

Kissing Carol might come a little further up the list.

Rick nodded, still smirking, and stalked dramatically toward his room. As John Wayne impressions went, it wouldn't have been half bad, except for the towel. Daryl slipped back into Carol's room with a mumbled "Dramatic asshole."

"It was Rick?"

Damn.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered. "You ain't' got anything to do today."

"I promised we would stay in here until the house clears out, but then I have to do laundry and get something together for dinner, at least. I won't go to work if you want company."

"Rick's takin' care of it."

She opened a closet and started rummaging through clothes. "I'm not tired. I had a long nap yesterday, and then we slept again last night. I'm not tired, Daryl. I need to do something."

The way she said "need" instead of "want" hung heavy in the room.

"You are doin' something. You're hanging out with me. Gonna help me take these bandages off today, right?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "The doctor —"

"I can't see his face 'til I get to punch it," Daryl snapped. He shook his head, "Didn't mean to yell."

"Daryl, he's the only doctor that we have."

"And I'm pretty sure he's been dosing me after you told him not to, 'cause I'm not having any trouble having complete thoughts. It's not happening."

"If I look at it and there's anything off or if you get even one degree of a fever, then we call him and you control yourself, so he doesn't know we're on to him until we're both ready to do something. Deal?"

"And you hang out with me today instead of working."

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"Ain't nowhere to go on no date. Besides, married people don't date."

"So if we aren't working, and we aren't dating, what are we going to do all day?"

Daryl blew out a breath and said words he never, in a million lifetimes, would have imagined he would ever say. "Reckon we can, y'know, talk. About stuff."

Carol dropped to the edge of the bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, clutching the pair of jeans in her hands against her chest. She'd gone pale and wide-eyed, and he almost took it back. Merle always said that women wanted to talk all the time, but the more Daryl was around other people the more he realized that Merle only knew about a very specific subset of people. And also, he was sometimes completely full of shit.

He flashed on their conversations in Atlanta, how she'd talked around the edges of the things it was obvious she really needed to talk about, and how he was just starting to feel like he was getting through to her when she was…he wondered if she knew he sometimes dreamed of that car hitting her. The way she flew into the air, the sound it made. He shook the memory away. He had a good idea what she didn't want to talk about. He was pretty sure that it was the same thing that she needed to talk about, but he wasn't opening up that can of worms today.

"I got a lot of things to say sorry for," he said instead.

She was shaking her head before he finished his sentence. "You don't. You've always done your best, Daryl. You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"Sorry I gave up," he whispered. "Prison was gone, everybody was gone, I lost the kid, and I just gave up. Stuff happened I ain't proud of. And it happened 'cause I gave up. Hell, the kid—if I'd just started looking for you instead of letting myself think you were dead, I probably never would have lost her in the first damned place."

"I thought you said we got to start over," she said.

He nodded. "You forgive me? Really? Not just sayin' it because you think you'd want somebody to forgive you if you done it. You really forgive me for not lookin'? For following Rick again after what he done?"

She nodded, but she wasn't looking at him. He knew what that meant.

"You know how I can earn that?" He asked, swallowing hard. This talking bullshit was hard.

"Daryl—I didn't even know you were carrying that around. Rick and I are okay. It won't ever be like it was before, but we're okay. And you and I are okay, too. I know that things went bad very quickly. I was there, after. I saw the smoke, and…" she was frowning, blinking hard, and she was clutching those damned pants like there were a lifeline.

"But it won't ever be like it was before."

"Nothing can ever be like it was before, but that isn't because of anything you did or didn't do. Even if—even if what happened to both of us while we were separated never happened, we couldn't go back to a time that's over. That's how life works. I'm not the woman I was at the prison. You aren't the man you were there, either."

"You are though. You're her. I can see her. Yeah, sure, stuff has happened, and I ain't sayin' you ain't carrying more than you were before, but you're carrying like, well like _you_ carry things. The person you are, that ain't changed. You're still right here."

She shrugged. "Well, that woman is going to have a look at your bullet wound, and then we'll go see what kind of food they left us."

Daryl winced. "Hope Rick didn't try to cook it himself."

"If he did, that's on you."

Carol didn't know exactly what Daryl had said to Rick when they had their visit in the infirmary, but she knew the vague outline of it. Between what Daryl said about Rick getting the idea that everything the Alexandrians thought was true, and the way Rick had taken to avoiding her eyes, she had assumed that it had all been about events on a highway nearly three years ago.

Had it really only been three years?

Lori had already been pregnant with Judith, and Judith couldn't even walk unassisted yet.

Carol felt like she'd lived three lifetimes in the time since Sophia was lost.

If there had been any doubt at all that more than those events had factored into that conversation, she could figure out part of the rest of it from a combination of Daryl wanting to talk about her exile, and the spread of food left on the table. It wasn't wasteful, unless you factored in the possibility that Rick had cooked it without help, but it was more than she'd expected. Cooked apples, powdered eggs, walnuts, and a kettle of water still hot on the stove that she hadn't even heard whistle that she quickly set about turning into tea.

This wasn't about her, she knew that. This was all about Daryl. This wasn't Rick saying he was sorry for anything that happened between him and her, this was Rick trying to make it up to Daryl. It wasn't a big deal, really. Rick had always been better at hiding it than Lori had, but he'd always had ideas about male and female roles. It had mostly shown early on, before Carl learned to edit himself and what he had been taught would just come spilling out of his mouth. Rick wasn't obnoxious about it, but it was there, nonetheless. Now that, in his mind, Carol actually belonged to someone, her ranking had changed dramatically.

They ate in silence. One thing that hadn't changed since nearly the beginning was the comfort in their silences. There was no need to fill the air with needless chatter. It was peaceful, and heaven knew peace was a valuable commodity these days. When they'd finished, they cleared the table but left the dishes in the sink at Daryl's muttered, "day off".

The problem with a day off was that, once she was slept out, there was nothing to do. None of the books in the house warranted a second read. The only board game to be found was Candy Land, and Carol would rather fight a herd of Walkers with only a fork than play another round Candyland in her lifetime. She said as much to Daryl.

"The hell's Candy Land?"

"It's a board game for toddlers. God, it's awful. It's like Chinese water torture. Sophia loved it. I played that game every day, sometimes five or six times a day, for a solid year. Never again."

"That bad, huh?"

"Well, not if you're two, I guess. I am not two."

"So ain't nobody taught Jude, yet?"

"Daryl Dixon, if you do that, then you're the one playing. Hide that box."

"Yes ma'am."

A few minutes later she heard a triumphant whoop from the home office that Daryl slept in when he was inside the walls. That Daryl used to sleep in. Whatever.

"What did you find?"

He trotted down the hall at a speed that she had thought still beyond him, holding his prize in his hand. "Playin' cards."

"Well, that's better than nothing," she said, smiling more at his excitement than at the idea of losing at poker for a couple hours.

"Can't play Rook with two people. Could play Rummy, though. Or poker."

"You found them, you pick."

He shrugged, winced, and chewed on the side of the side of his thumb. Then Daryl Dixon _winked_, and said, "Wanna play strip poker?"

For a second she thought she had to have heard him wrong, but the intent way he was watching for her reaction suggested otherwise. "People could come back any time."

"Could play in our room." He added waggling eyebrows. He was being playful, only half serious, but it surprised her, anyway.

"Ask me again when your stitches are out," she said, throwing in a wink for good measure. She couldn't have him thinking he had flustered her.

She was absolutely flustered.

There was a time she flirted to watch him squirm, and the role reversal completely threw her off. She wouldn't ever have imagined Daryl _capable_.

"Ain't got no stitches in my eyes," he mumbled. "But if you don't think you can control yourself…"

The front door creaked open and Rick came through. "Sorry, won't be long. Didn't take enough supplies. Just here for diapers."

Red blossomed at the base of Daryl's neck, spreading up toward his face quickly. He stepped between Carol and Rick said in a tone she hadn't heard in a very long time, "You've got to be fuckin' kidding me!"


End file.
